US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said on Sunday that if diplomacy fails to rein in North Korea’s threatening behavior , Defense Secretary James Mattis “will take care of it.”
“We wanted to be responsible and go through all diplomatic means to get their attention first. If that doesn’t work, General Mattis will take care of it,” Haley
“If North Korea keeps on with this reckless behavior, the United States has to defend itself or defend its allies in anyway, North Korea will be destroyed, and we know that and none of us want that. None of us want war,” she added.
Haley’s comments come after the United Nations Security Council last Monday imposed more stringent sanctions against North Korean President Kim Jong Un’s government 🧜by tightly restricting imports of oil and te🎉xtiles.
Her remarks also come just days after a defiant Pyongyang fired another intercontinental ballistic missi🌃le that sailed over Japan and landed 2,300 ꦛmiles away in the Pacific Ocean. The regime also shot an ICBM over Japan on Aug. 29.
The new round of sanctions were prompted by Kim’s government detonating a nuclear device on Sept. 3 – its sixth.
Asked about President Trump calling the new UN penalties “not a big deal,” Haley said 90 percent of North Korea’s trade has been cut off, isolating the rogue regime.
“We have economically strangled North Korea at this point and they have said as much,” she said on CNN. “I think what the president’s saying is, ‘Look we’ve done all this, but we can do a whole lot more.’ Everybody in the international community sees what a big deal it is. ”
Trump has refused to rule out using military force against North Korea, and has said any threats against the US or its allies would be met with “fire and fury.”
Haley said the president’s words were “not an empty threat. ”
“You have to ask the president what ‘fire and fury’ meant,” she told CNN. “We also have to look at the fact that you are dealing with someone who is being reckless, irresponsible and is continuing to give threats not only to the United States, but to all of their allies. So something is going to have to be done.
We’re trying every other possibility that we have but there’s a whole lot of military opti🎃ons on the table.”